Expansion of Negro Suffrage in North Carolina

Abstract

North Carolina is one of the original states of the solid-South. Today the culture of its people, the climate, the political history, the relationship between races, and the economy still classify the state as a solid member of the Southern bloc. Within the past twenty-five or thirty years there has developed a gradual change in the thinking of its people, and the acceptance, on the part of a substantial number of North Carolinians, of progressive trends in racial, labor, educational, political, and economic developments. Negroes have been appointed to state, county, and local boards and commissions which deal with public matters involving all citizens. One of the largest cities in the state is under the administrative guidance of a mayor who is of the Jewish faith. To some extent the textile and tobacco industries, along with other prominent industries of the state, have been unionized. In many localities labor leaders represent labor in areas where public policy is determined. Since the administration of Governor Charles B. Aycock (1901) legislative and executive programs have been devised to establish progress in education as being essential to the growth of the State. North Carolina was a pioneer among Southern states in the equalization of salaries for teachers. Every effort is being made to encourage the growth of industry within the state boundaries in the belief that new industries will contribute substantially to the economic betterment of all citizens. On the political scene, with exceptions (some of which will be noted below), Negroes have been encouraged to register and vote in all elections. The extent of North Carolina's acceptance of these phenomena has gained for the state the general consensus that it is the most liberal state of the South. While one is not seeking to establish the credibility of this general observation, suffice it to say that recent developments in the matters of public school integration and the registration of Negroes have caused national and international observers to pause and re-evaluate. Granted that within the past year adverse criticism has been directed toward the State because of legislation allegedly designed to delay or defeat integration and discourage registration on the part of Negroes, the fact remains that there has been a noticeable expansion in Negro suffrage during the last three decades. While it is difficult to determine the expansion in terms of irrefutable figures, it can be ascertained by information gathered from various sources that the polls have experienced a gradual increase due to the vote-consciousness of the colored citizens of North Carolina. THE PERIOD FROM 1900 To 1945 In 1932 Paul Lewinson, writing in Race, Class and Party, made the following observations: No complete demonstration has